Fort Worth diocese settles suit filed by accuser

Published 6:00 pm, Thursday, February 14, 2008

The Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth has settled another accuser's lawsuit alleging abuse by a priest now serving prison time for raping a boy in 1990, officials announced Friday.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit, whose name was not released, said he also was abused by the Rev. Thomas Teczar, who was a visiting priest in the Fort Worth diocese in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The diocese declined to disclose the settlement amount.

Last year in Eastland, Teczar was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child involving incidents with an 11-year-old boy in 1990, and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. A few months later the diocese reached an undisclosed settlement with three men who said they were raped by Teczar.

In 2005, the diocese settled lawsuits for $4.15 million with two of Teczar's accusers, including one who filed the criminal complaint in Eastland, about 90 miles west of Fort Worth.

Teczar served as a priest in the Worcester, Mass., diocese until he was kicked out in 1986 for misconduct with boys. He moved to the Fort Worth diocese in 1988 but returned to Massachusetts in 1993 when other sexual abuse allegations surfaced in Texas, diocese officials have said.

The disclosure of the most recent settlement comes a day after the Fort Worth diocese announced that a former priest accused of sexually abusing minors in Texas and Rhode Island, the Rev. Philip A. Magaldi, is HIV positive.

The Rev. Kevin Vann, bishop of the Fort Worth diocese, is working with Worcester, Mass., diocese officials to have Teczar defrocked, which would remove him from clerical status.